Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Garry Wills's complete translation of Saint Augustine's spiritual masterpiece — available now for the first time.

Garry Wills is an exceptionally gifted translator and one of our best writers on religion today. His bestselling translations of individual chapters of Saint Augustine's Confessions have received widespread and glowing reviews. Now for the first time, Wills's translation of the entire work is being published as a Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition. Removed by time and place but not by spiritual relevance, Augustine's Confessions continues to influence contemporary religion, language, and thought. Reading with fresh, keen eyes, Wills brings his superb gifts of analysis and insight to this ambitious translation of the entire book.

Review:

"[Wills] renders Augustine’s famous and influential text in direct language with all the spirited wordplay and poetic strength intact." Los Angeles Times

Review:

"[Wills’s] translations...are meant to bring Augustine straight into our own minds; and they succeed. Well-known passages, over which my eyes have often gazed, spring to life again from Wills’s pages." Peter Brown, The New York Review of Books

Review:

"Augustine flourishes in Wills’s hand." James Wood

Review:

Synopsis:

For the first time, Wills's translation of the entire "Confessions" work by Saint Augustine has been compiled into one edition. Removed by time and place but not spiritual relevance, this text continues to influence contemporary religion, language and thought.

About the Author

Saint Augustine was born on November 13th, A.D. 354, in Tagaste (modern Souk Ahras, Algeria), and died almost seventy-six years later in Hippo Regius — (modern Annaba) on the Mediterranean coast sixty miles away. In the years between, he devoted himself to the mastery of the texts of scripture, becoming a formidable theologian.

Garry Wills is one of the most respected writers on religion today. He is the author of Saint Augustine’s Childhood, Saint Augustine’s Memory, and Saint Augustine’s Sin, the first three volumes in this series, as well as the Penguin Lives biography Saint Augustine. His other books include “Negro President”: Jefferson and the Slave Power, Why I Am a Catholic, Papal Sin, and Lincoln at Gettysburg, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

"Review"
by Los Angeles Times,
"[Wills] renders Augustine’s famous and influential text in direct language with all the spirited wordplay and poetic strength intact."

"Review"
by Peter Brown, The New York Review of Books,
"[Wills’s] translations...are meant to bring Augustine straight into our own minds; and they succeed. Well-known passages, over which my eyes have often gazed, spring to life again from Wills’s pages."

"Synopsis"
by Libri,
For the first time, Wills's translation of the entire "Confessions" work by Saint Augustine has been compiled into one edition. Removed by time and place but not spiritual relevance, this text continues to influence contemporary religion, language and thought.

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